Linemen for New York Power Authority (NYPA; White Plains, New York) routinely work on substations in a partially energized condition. NYPA is the nation's largest state-owned electric utility, and our line crews are responsible for maintaining the overheads, insulators, lightning arresters and motor-operating disconnects for the substations.

NYPA operates and maintains 18 generating facilities statewide and more than 1400 circuit-miles of transmission lines. To keep linemen safe in the field, NYPA requires them to abide by the following guidelines for substation work.

1. Perform lockout/tagout always

   When a piece of equipment is removed from service, a standardized clearance request is submitted to our operations group. We will then inspect the equipment and test it for voltage. We've had trouble with non-contact testers in the past, so we're now using the contact-type voltage tester.

   Our hot sticks are routinely inspected and stored in bags and tubes, and cleaned before each day's use. Once the equipment has been tested, it is grounded. To reverse it, we take the grounds off and release the clearance to operations, who will switch it back in service.

2. Implement proper grounding procedures

   After the lockout/tagout has been conducted, we place and verify the grounds. NYPA's engineering group has conducted a thorough investigation and identified the available fault current on each of our lines and within our substations, and determined the proper-sized grounds for personal protection.

   When grounding the equipment, it's important for linemen to use the right parts and pieces. For example, a flat connector should be placed on a flat component, and a cable connector should be placed on a cable component. It's important to not mix up the components.

   We routinely test our grounds using a commercial ground tester. For maximum benefit, we advise our linemen to place the ground only on a clean component and not on an object that is corroded. Any resistance in the ground path will lead to a serious, life-threatening situation if there are problems with the ground cable or connectors.

3. Use fall protection

   Proper fall protection is a very important part of our safety program. Whenever our linemen are doing any kind of aerial work, they need to have some means of fall protection in place.

   When they're using anything other than fixed fall protection for ladders or aerial equipment, we stress the importance of finding suitable anchorage points. We rarely find linemen tying off to things that are unsafe such as conduits. While things such as these may look substantial, in a situation where a fall occurs, the linemen would not be stopped, and the pipe would likely come down on top of them.

4. Identify the substation components

   When our linemen conduct maintenance, they work from a work order that includes a job-safety analysis document, which talks about fall protection, personal protective equipment and lockout/tagout. These work orders clearly define on what equipment the linemen are supposed to be working. When you have a large bay of breakers, many of them can look the same, and it's easy for a lineman to pull up to the wrong component and attempt to go to work. To prevent this from happening, NYPA identifies the equipment that needs to be worked on with flags or ropes.

5. Wear the correct personal protective equipment

   When working in a substation environment, NYPA linemen wear insulated foot gear and gloves, hard hats and safety glasses. Line crews have access to arc-flash gear rated up to 45 calories.

   NYPA is in the process of implementing a complete arc-flash program. On each and every job, we evaluate it carefully to determine whether or not arc-flash personal protective equipment is required.

6. Make safety a priority

   Due to our safety procedures regarding substation work as well as other types of work, the American Public Power Association recently awarded NYPA the Electric Utility Safety Award for safe operating practices in 2007. NYPA placed first in its category, and our utility was judged on the number of work-related reportable injuries or illnesses and the number of worker-hours during the last year. It's great for our line crews to see that all the energy they have spent on working safely every day has paid off.

Charlie Serrie is the life extension and modernization outage coordinator for New York Power Authority (NYPA) at Blenheim, New York. He has been with the utility for the last 28 years and previously served as the company's maintenance supervisor. charles.serrie@nypa.gov